topic Re: Standard for Building Material IDs in Documentation

Standard for Building Material IDs

Josh Verran — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 01:13:53 GMT

Curious about what system people use for their Building Material IDs.

I can't seem to find a national standard (NZ).

I have been using a pretty basic numbering system (BM01, BM02, BM03 etc).

This has been alright a but a bit of a nuisance when ordering numerically.

Also just seeing BM27 by itself gives no clue as to what it is.

I've thought about acronyms or a variation on that, eg CONC for Concrete.

I feel like it might just end up being unique to this company but interested to hear what people are doing.

Re: Standard for Building Material IDs

DGSketcher — Fri, 29 Oct 2021 08:01:21 GMT

@Josh Verran The UK tends to use the guidance that comes from "The NBS" for layer and other standards. The current "favoured" naming system UNICLASS 2015 covers products. I don't like it and don't use it in my documentation, but it should give you an idea of the scale of the problem. I may be wrong, but I would imagine most users not bound by government standards, including myself, just establish a common sense memorable naming system to suit their regularly used materials.

If you don't already have it, open the classification manager and click on the [ I ] in the lower left which gives you a link to the classifications download site. If you look at the CAWS classification headings, they may give you some easier to use pointers.

Re: Standard for Building Material IDs

David Shorter — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 04:35:29 GMT

Back in 2013 (I think, when BMs were introduced I used (for the want of something logical) the NATspec codes as the Building Material IDs for the Australian Template like this...

Its recently changed.

Re: Standard for Building Material IDs

Tim Ball — Sat, 30 Oct 2021 12:03:11 GMT

I use the old CAWS UK system across all attributes so that I only have to remember one standard. However, I am not sharing the information so it’s just for my own convenience. For instance, a ceiling in my system might have the following attributes

Material K | Lining | Plasterboard
Cut fill M2 | Int Finish | Plaster
Surface M6 | Decoration | Paint - White Emulsion
Layer name A | K | K4 Ceiling

I rename all the standard ,materials and surfaces attributes in my own template